Month: November 2021

30 November 2021

Press Statement

Militarized government behind widespread human rights violations: upholding civilian governance and respect for democratic rights essential in addressing roots of the GRP-NDFP armed conflict

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

– Matthew 5:9-

Last week’s meeting between military leadership and presidential hopeful VP Leni Robredo caused quite a stir with VP Leni appearing to walk-back her campaign commitment to abolish the National Task Force-End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).  In a bid to win-over military leaders, VP Leni expressed her support to ending the communist insurgency in the Philippines through the so-called “Whole of Nation Approach.”  As peace advocates, we urge VP Leni to engage dialogues and study further how to address the roots of the armed conflict in the country.

Executive Order 70, which created the NTF-ELCAC, is a militarist construct to further embed and ca-pacitate military leadership and maneuvering of the civilian government. The onslaught of human rights violations like Red-tagging, harassment, fabricated charges and arrests, extra-judicial killings, and forced and fake surrenders are a natural outgrowth of placing militarist war-hawks at the helm of governance. Their tentacles into essentially every department of government have severely restricted democratic space, while inversely encouraging the commission of unbridled violations of human rights with impunity as well as fostering the questionable and unchecked use of funds for supposed intelli-gence/“peace and development” operations throughout the country.

The unraveling of the peace process under the Duterte administration has resulted in more violence on the ground even as the roots of the armed conflict—poverty, landlessness, inaccessibility to services and inequitable distribution of resources—continue to worsen in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.  We appreciate VP Leni’s desire to bring relief and development in real and tangible ways, especially in far-flung and under-served communities; however, militarizing “peace (and development)” is an out-and-out oxymoron. Whenever those who are exploited, marginalized and underserved are further oppressed through militarization and threats of violations of their democratic and political rights, they may seem to be silenced or assuaged by infusions of funds through the military or local government unit, but historically, the most oppressed are only further compelled to resistance. 

By CBCP News
November 23, 2021
Manila, Philippines

With the election season beginning to heat up, a top Catholic official urged the electorate to study the track record and platform of candidates.

Cardinal Jose Advincula, the archbishop of Manila, said that voters must look at the integrity before choosing candidates to support in the May 2022 elections.

“We pray that there will be a deep assessment of the programs and platforms of every candidate, as well as their track records,” Advincula said in Radio Veritas.

One thing to do, according to him, is to form “circles of discernment” among lay people to guide them in their choice of political candidates.

He said it is imperative for voters to deeply discern as a community on the characteristics and track record of each candidate.

“It is our call for the people to create their ‘circles of discernment’ so that we can hear and follow the will of God,” Advincula said.

The cardinal also encouraged voters to consider the position of candidates regarding respect for human dignity, common good, social justice, and societal charity.

“We hope that these will be the prevailing considerations of the people in choosing our next leaders,” he said.

To: All Laiko Members

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Good Day!

We are pleased to endorse to you this invitation from the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Youth to the “Sana Ol” part of the series of virtual gatherings for young public servants and their supporters this Friday, November 26,  6:00 PM.

As we communicated to you before, this is part of the Young David’s Program where ECY, NASSA &  LAIKO are collaborating to promote good governance especially to your young people.

Kindly encourage your youth groups to actively support and join this very important advocacy.

Thank you.

LAIKO Secretariat

To: All LAIKO Members: Arch/Diocesan Councils of the Laity & National Lay Organizations

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Good day!

As we thank you for your constant support to the Online Conversations that we were conducting to highlight the areas of concerns identified in the Resolutions of our Biennial Convention, we invite you once more to the last conversation lined- up for this year.

For this Saturday, November 27, 2:00pm to 4:00 pm, we are pleased to invite you to the Online Conversation on “The Principled Partisan Politics”. We have invited the “LAIKO Warriors” to talk on us on our possible political engagement as lay faithful in the 2022 national elections.

Kindly invite the members of your organizations to join us too. To register, please email/inform Mr. Joseph Jesalva at laiko_phils@yahoo.com.ph.

God bless & keep you all safe!

Sincerely in the service of the Lord,